Pixel Scroll 1/14/16 I’m Not A Pixel, I’m A Free Scroll

(1) SPEAKING OF FREE SCROLLS. R. Graeme Cameron will start a “SciFi Fiction Magazine” for Canadian writers if his GoFundMe appeal generates $1,500. Issues will be a free read.

When I was a teenager I decided I wanted to be a Science Fiction Writer. Fifty years later I’m a curmudgeonly pensioner who never sold a darn thing, not one novel, not one story. Del Rey books rejected one of my novels with the comment “We don’t like your main character and we don’t think anyone else will either.”

As a life-long beginning writer I know your pain. Always dreaming of that first sale. That’s why I’m starting up POLAR BOREAL, a Canadian SF&F fiction magazine actively encouraging beginning Canadian writers to submit short stories (3,000 words or less) and/or poems. The magazine will be free to anyone who wants to download it, yet all contributors will be paid on acceptance (if I can get the money) at one cent a word for short stories and $10 per poem.

(2) THE CLASSICS. Alexander Dane makes it sound like every day is Black Friday…

(3) NOT EGGSACTLY SURE. TV Guide promises “The 15 Coolest Easter Eggs from Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. SPOILER WARNING, naturally, but my question is – how many of these are really Easter Eggs as opposed to simple casting reveals? Do I not understand what an Easter Egg is? Straighten me out here….

(4) WILD GUESS. Umm, maybe look at the MidAmeriCon II committee list and use the contact information?

(5) HOW AUTHORS DON’T GET PAID. Philip Pullman has resigned as Patron of the Oxford Literary Festival the organization has announced. The reason is very simple.

Our President, Philip Pullman, has resigned as a Patron of Oxford Literary Festival because they do not pay authors.

He explained his decision:

My position as President of the Society of Authors, which has been campaigning for fair payment for speakers at literary festivals, sat rather awkwardly with my position as Patron of the Oxford Literary Festival, because (despite urging from me and others over the years) it does not pay speakers. So I thought it was time I resigned as a Patron of the OLF.

The principle is very simple: a festival pays the people who supply the marquees, it pays the printers who print the brochure, it pays the rent for the lecture-halls and other places, it pays the people who run the administration and the publicity, it pays for the electricity it uses, it pays for the drinks and dinners it lays on: why is it that the authors, the very people at the centre of the whole thing, the only reason customers come along and buy their tickets in the first place, are the only ones who are expected to work for nothing?

(6) I SEE BY YOUR OUTFIT. Y-3 creates spacesuits for Virgin Galactic pilots on world’s first commercial space flights

(7) BUGS, MISTER RICO! The newly-christened “Las Vegas of ants” is visible on Google Earth.

Not far from the Grand Canyon, near a landmark called Vulcan’s Throne, the ground is dotted with strange, barren circles, visible from orbit.

Evidence of an alien encounter? Nope. The likely culprit is actually ants — a lot of them. So many that the scientists who discovered them are referring to the area as “the Las Vegas of ants.”

Physicist Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, a specialist in image processing and satellite imagery analysis at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy, noticed the bizarre polka- dot features while studying the dimensions of the Grand Canyon rim in Google Earth.

(8) VOX DAY COLLECTIBLES. Vox Day devoted a post to Camestros Felapton’s “Hugo”/Lego “Sad Larry” trading card.

While they, apparently, are occupied with making Lego figures of us. It seems that is what they do when they are not obsessing over what they think we are thinking. Even in light of how poorly they anticipated me last time, it’s mildly amusing to see that they still don’t understand my perspective at all.

The Dread Ilk commenters, however, were more concerned that Vox get a “Hugo” trading card of his own, so Felapton reassured them in “Vox links to the Larry pic”

Vox appeared in an earlier post and has a new figure in a couple of days – with a flaming sword no less!

So it looks like we won’t get to riff off Lucy’s “Was Beethoven ever on a bubblegum card?” after all.

(9) GRABTHAR’S HAMMER OF LOVING CORRECTION. Steve Davidson’s self-imposed moratorium on writing about Sad Puppies at Amazing Stories has ended in the only way it could. Here are a few salient paragraphs.

In moving forward, I believe it is important that the message sent last year be reinforced this year. We’ve already seen at least one author declaring that begging for votes is no longer a problem.  If we do not want that mindset to take hold, we will continue to repudiate slate voting this year.

Fans who discover a loophole in the voting rules don’t seek personal advantage – they bring it to the attention of other fans and make proposals at the business meeting and generally use their new found knowledge for the benefit of the whole.  (Or, if unhappy with the process, they go off and do their own thing, which is then rewarded or ignored based on the merit of the accomplishment, not a tally of internet one upsmanship points.)  Hugo voting actions this year should send that message.  Therefore –

I will be nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards this year in the same way I voted last year:  I’ll read and watch and listen to everything I can on the final ballot, will vote my conscience and will make sure that any work that appears on a slate (a voting list with a political agenda behind it) will be below No Award and off the ballot.

(10) RATINGS TIME. Gregory N. Hullender of Rocket Stack Rank says:

We analyzed all the RSR data to come up with a list for Best Editor (short form) Hugo nominations.

We construct several different lists, using different assumptions, and urge fans to use our data to make their own lists, so I don’t think this amounts to a slate.

This should be fun reading for anyone who’s really into short fiction, since I don’t believe anyone has ever done this kind of analysis before.

If anyone feels to the contrary — there are any slate-like tendencies in play here — please share your analysis.

(11) WE ALL DREAM IN GOLD. Since we always try to cover Guillermo del Toro’s doings on File 770 whenever we can, John King Tarpinian was disgustipated (I think that’s the technical term) that I overlooked this golden opportunity in my post about the 2016 Oscar nominations.

Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Guillermo del Toro, John Krasinski and Ang Lee will announce the 88th Academy Awards® nominations in all 24 Oscar® categories at a special two-part live news conference on Thursday…

(12) SHRUNKEN HEADS. Cass R. Sunstein at Bloomberg News breaks down “How Facebook Makes Us Dumber”.

Why does misinformation spread so quickly on the social media? Why doesn’t it get corrected? When the truth is so easy to find, why do people accept falsehoods?

A new study focusing on Facebook users provides strong evidence that the explanation is confirmation bias: people’s tendency to seek out information that confirms their beliefs, and to ignore contrary information.

I thought so. Or is it just confirmation bias at work if I agree that Facebook lowers my IQ?

(13) FOREVER DIFFERENT. Tobias Carroll checked with “28 Authors on the Books That Changed Their Lives”. The New York Magazine article has contributions from SF authors Elizabeth Hand, Ken Liu, Cathrynne M. Valente, Kelly Link, Jeff VanderMeer, and Jo Walton, among others.

Maria Dahvana Headley, author of Magonia and The Year of Yes “This question is both easy and difficult! I grew up a very rural and very gluttonous reader, in Idaho, about ten miles outside a town of 500 people. Essentially, I spent my reading childhood playing with other people’s imaginary friends, and I’ve grown into the kind of writer who does the same thing. So, in that regard, everything I’ve ever read has been life-changing. The first massive Rock My World book, though, was Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which I read when I was 17. Not only was I clueless about race in America at that point, coming from where I came from, I was also clueless about living female genius writers. I didn’t know there were any. Up to that point, I’d read almost entirely white men. KA-BAM. I got blasted out of the universe of dead white boys, and into something much more magnificent. Morrison’s way of flawlessly entwining her haunting with her history left me dazzled, sobbing, and bewildered. Morrison is obviously a genre-leaping master of style, and reading her not only made me aware of what was possible as a writer, it led me to all of the poets, songwriters, playwrights, and librettists who continue to influence my work today.”

(14) BOWIE AND SF. Jason Heller’s Pitchfork article “Anthems for the Moon: David Bowie’s Sci-Fi Explorations” is one more list of SF parallels and influences on Bowie’s work. Moorcock, Heinlein, Bradbury, Dick, Burgess, and others are mentioned.

In its celebration of androgyny, glam also lined up with Ursula K. Le Guin’s visionary 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, which takes place on an alien planet where transitions between genders are as routine as any other biological process—a concept that certainly resonates with Bowie’s aesthetic. “Androgynous sexuality and extraterrestrial origin seemed to have provided two different points of identification for Bowie fans,” notes Philip Auslander in Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. “Whereas some were taken with his womanliness, others were struck by his spaciness.”

(15) MARS MUSIC I. Matthew Johnson adds another number to that award-winning musical, The Martian.

(With apologies to David Bowie)

Hello, I feel I have to remind
You that you kind of left me behind
Is there life on Mars?

 

Four years alone could be a slog
I guess I ought to keep a log
Is there life on Mars?

 

On Mars a man dies by his wits
He even has to science his shit
Is there life on Mars?

 

The greatest scientist on the planet
I can plant it and grow it and can it
Is there life on Mars?

 

Disco hell is kind of groovy
Matt Damon plays me in the movie
Is there life on Mars?

 

Four years is a long time to be alone
There might be a new Game of Thrones when I’m done
Is there life on Mars?

(16) MARS MUSIC II. And Seth Gordon likewise swings and sways to a melody in his head

As I walk through the valley with the sand so red
I take a look at my suit and realize that I’m not dead
’Cause I’ve been science-ing this shit for so long that
Even Houston thinks that my ass is gone…

[Thanks to Bret Grandrath, Rob Thornton, John King Tarpinian, Will R., and Nick Mamatas for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Hampus Eckerman.]

292 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/14/16 I’m Not A Pixel, I’m A Free Scroll

  1. Mike Glyer: Yes, and by arguing that OTHERS lack that capacity

    I haven’t argued that others lack that capacity. I’ve pointed out that RSR is telling others that they don’t have that capacity. Some people are far more susceptible than I am to this subtle form of “Let me tell you how you should think” suasion — which is why I think RSR shouldn’t be subjecting anyone to it.

    I will note in passing that that is the same strategy that abusers use on their victims: “Here, you’re too stupid to know how to choose what to do, so you should go by what I say”.

  2. @Kathodus,

    You’re right, it just wouldn’t be the same. No worries, there’ll be future opportunities for lame jokes. Just you wait!

    Speaking of elaborate setup (and patience), have you seen Frank Furter‘s Twitter account? (Note the timestamp of the latest tweet compared to earlier ones.)

  3. JJ: I haven’t argued that others lack that capacity. I’ve pointed out that RSR is telling others that they don’t have that capacity. Some people are far more susceptible than I am to this subtle form of “Let me tell you how you should think” suasion…

    Now that you’ve admitted my point, I guess my work here is done.

  4. Mike Glyer: Now that you’ve admitted my point

    We’ll agree to disagree on that point. What RSR is doing is a subtle form of bullying.

  5. @Jon But it would be nice if more people’s opinions were subject to change in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence

    It sure would. I’ve commented before that if more people saw what was obviously better, smarter, superior we’d have world peace, health care for all, solved world hunger/climate problems/etc.*.

    I’d point out its not just JJ and I who have said “don’t do ranked list” in this thread and suggest you could research the past Hugo history on how voters have felt about ranked list but I see no point to going around in circles.

    I think I’ll have a drink with @Mike Glyer to world peace instead.

    @Soon Lee
    I’m sorry you never got to use your joke. It would have been epic. I’ll never look at those yeast cells the same way again.

    *paraphrased as I’m too lazy to find my actual comment. I know I mentioned world peace as @Mike Glyer posted a related Groundhog Day clip and it was creepy- the video not Mike

  6. @Graydon – I am obscurely comforted and also now wish you to write Lovecraft pastiche of The Doom That Came To Heuristics.

  7. Personally, I keep wondering what all these ostentatiously-Christian conservatives have against protecting the environment

    It’s not that they don’t want to protect it, it’s that it won’t be necessary because Jesus is coming any day now.

    According to former Interior Secretary Watt, anyway.

  8. My long term memory is not the best, but my short term memory is pretty reliable. Some of what @Jon posted from RSR’s explanation of its methods and purposes is new to me, although I read the initial post OGH linked to in its entirety. What appear to be amendments improve the tone, but it still looks like a slate to me, as would anything that ranks hierarchically. Also, I’m categorically against anything that tries to chew my food for me, so I have never found RSR in the least useful and that colors my view.

    For those who don’t think it’s a slate, yay. For those who do, also yay. We each have our own metrics for where the line is.

  9. @Red Wombat —

    Pastiche is so not my best skill. If I tried real hard it’d probably come out more like Dunsany’s “The Gods of Pegāna” than Lovecraft and I’m not sure that would be a good thing.

    Consciously creepy and doom-laden in my own voice is something I’ve been informed I shouldn’t do. (Marna may not have forgiven me for the eye-wasps yet.) So Heuristics may need to go un-doomed by other than the accumulation of wretched circumstance for some time yet.

    Kumlien’s Gull today. First pass copy-edits on Safely You Deliver came back. Pretty good day.

  10. JJ: What RSR is doing is a subtle form of bullying.

    Please give a generally recognized definition of your term, “bullying,” so there will be a basis for deciding whether to agree or disagree.

  11. @JJ

    We’ll agree to disagree on that point. What RSR is doing is a subtle form of bullying.

    Now I disagree. They’ve been insulting to fans. But not bullying.

    I found it interesting on rereading the post, which has changed, that many of the people they’ve chosen as best editors are also the sources they used in determining best editor. You start with a group of 8 and you end up ranking most of that group as the best editors. Does that seem strange to anyone else?

    Me I find I like new and fresh voices and have loved a lot of what I’ve seen from new small press anthologies and free short fiction as well as Uncanny and Mothership Zeta. Maybe I hangout on Kickstarter/Patreon and with indies to much. Since I’ve not restricted myself in the same ways my list looks very different from RSR although I have to check with a couple anthology editors to confirm they qualify.

  12. @Tasha

    Hey, thanks for the tip to Mothership Zeta. I hadn’t known that magazine existed.

  13. @redheadedfemme

    Mothership Zeta is good fun. I see they’ve put several stories from their first issue up on their site now, I’d try The Customer Is Always Right or Bargain for quick and funny, or Sleeping with Spirits for something enjoyable but with a bit more substance.

  14. Soon Lee: As far as I’m concerned, you’re absolutely entitled to call yourself a Fan, whether or not you go to or have ever gone to conventions. Fans consciously and deliberately engage with the community of Fandom. Writing letters of comment to prozines and fanzines is the oldest form of SF Fandom there is. File770 is a fanzine. Ergo, everyone who comments here with the intent of being part of the community is engaging in “fanac”: fannish activity, and is thus a Fan, if that’s what they want to consider themself. QED.

  15. NON-SLATE:

    @Soon Lee: Wait, I thought it was a planet! I just couldn’t figure out which one, so I never mentioned it.

    @lurkertype: LOL at the thought of just buying Larry donuts to get him to chillax.

  16. IN RE. SLATE:

    @Mike Glyer: JJ’s not doing the same thing as RSR. For example, I don’t believe she’s appealed to her authority as an expert on people’s susceptibility to appeals to authority.

    I’ll repeat, politics and culture wars aren’t required for slates, and unpopular slates are still slates. You’re not the only one here who seems to believe politics are required for a Hugo slate, but I just don’t get that.

    I agree the influence of popular authors’ “hey I like X” lists is overrated . . . sometimes. But last year, people voted based on influential (to them) authors and blowhards (Larry, Brad, Beale, etc.)! So it’s not that simple. Still, I don’t believe people read Martin’s or Scalzi’s recs and blindly vote for works (but then, they don’t tell people to; I rather imagine their readers would laugh in their faces if they did, though! people aren’t shy about calling out B.S. on their blogs).

    All authors have a little influence, though, else why do blurbs exist? “I like author X, and they liked/rec’d Y; maybe I’ll like Y – I’ll look into it.” As with most aspects of these issues, IMHO it’s complicated.

  17. IN RE. SLATE 2:

    @Shambles: I appreciated Moen’s guide; I can find the info on my own, but I found it helpful to have in one place, especially as things changed. And she kept her commentery on the post brief, which I also appreciated. I’d be happy to see another such guide, which listed works-not-on-a-slate. I also wouldn’t mind seeing a here-are-all-the-slates list. I see no reason to give equal weight to people/works who were cheated onto the ballot.

    But of course, people should use – or not use – guides as they see fit. It feels like a resource to me, and relatively harmless. Anyone who doesn’t like it can skip it, but I don’t feel it was an influencer.

    @Zenu: Hmm, RSR post versus Goodreads Award . . . nope, analogy fail. I agree commentary is good, though.

    Anyway, I feel like you’re using a puppy-like argument, sorry. “Aha, you said X therefore every award list is a slate.” It’s absurd to manipulate a definition to try to trap someone, as if people are machines and don’t think for themselves. Award X is by definition is not a slate for award Y. Especially if used as a “gotcha.”

    Unrelated: Just FYI, Zenu, some of your comments don’t show your image.

    @Shao Ping: We read the part we both quoted very differently. 😉 Fair enough.

  18. All authors have a little influence, though, else why do blurbs exist? “I like author X, and they liked/rec’d Y; maybe I’ll like Y – I’ll look into it.”

    The other reason blurbs exist is that it’s another way to have a message like “It’s like Ocean’s 11 meets Rendezvous with Rama!” or “If you like footnotes, you’ll love this!”

    In some cases, I think the author of the blurb matters. In many, though, I think it’s more a matter of the content of the blurb, another way to tempt the potential reader with a description of content or style or a message like “I have seen the future of MilSF, and its name is T. Kingfisher!”

    My suspicion that authors are not the most important part of the blurb (or at least not regularly) probably has something to do with the number of blurbs I get asked to write. I can understand why people might take my comics recommendations seriously, but when I’m blurbing a book by say, Joanne Harris, I’m thinking, “This blurb had better say something nicely and enticingly descriptive, because the author of CHOCOLAT will not get a market advantage out of my name…”

  19. Kendall: @Mike Glyer: JJ’s not doing the same thing as RSR. For example, I don’t believe she’s appealed to her authority as an expert on people’s susceptibility to appeals to authority.

    Not to mention that the claim that “someone is intelligent enough to come up with a list of what they judge to be best” is the same as “someone is strong enough to withstand someone else’s efforts to persuade them to vote differently” is a blatantly false equivalency.

  20. JJ: We’ll agree to disagree on that point. What RSR is doing is a subtle form of bullying.

    Tasha Turner: Now I disagree. They’ve been insulting to fans. But not bullying.

    Okay, then, call it “intimidation”. Or “gaslighting”.

    If I said to you, “Tasha, you really aren’t in a position to make a good judgment about who should be nominated for Best Editor, but I am, so you should make use of my rankings”, how would you respond to that? Would you not feel as though I was subtly trying to bully you?

  21. Kendall: I appreciated Moen’s guide; I can find the info on my own, but I found it helpful to have in one place, especially as things changed. And she kept her commentery on the post brief, which I also appreciated. I’d be happy to see another such guide, which listed works-not-on-a-slate.

    I was extremely unhappy with that post of Moen’s. If we are expecting people to be capable of nominating of their own individual taste, then they are also surely capable of determining which entries are on slates if they wish to avoid them.

    I hope very much that no one will pull a repeat of that stunt this year.

  22. If we are expecting people to be capable of nominating of their own individual taste, then they are also surely capable of determining which entries are on slates if they wish to avoid them

    Isn’t one convenient way to determine which entries are not on a slate to read a list them, a list like Moen’s? I very much hope Moen and others will continue to make it clear which items are on slates. I don’t see what the point is for every voter to do his or her investigation into whether or not something was on a slate. That would be a huge waste of time and completely pointless.

    (obviously I disagree very much with the characterization of RSR as gaslighting too, but I’ve already had my say with that topic)

  23. Kurt Busiek: I have seen the future of MilSF, and its name is T. Kingfisher!

    *snort*

    I’d totally be all over Kingfisher MilSF.

  24. @JJ
    You have personally intimidated me in the past (not necessarily intentionally). If you were to personally make that statement to me I might feel bullied due to our history.

    But the general statement by RSR. Intellectually might it make some intimidated? No more than reading the typical comments here IMHO. Someone here expressed being intimidated by the number of books several filers read a year. Are prolific readers bullying by sharing numbers when others are? I don’t think so but then I’m one of the prolific readers. Maybe I’m not recognizing my own bullying.

  25. “I’d totally be all over Kingfisher MilSF.”

    Oh FFS snowcrash. Work on reading things properly, and suppress your inner 12 year old.

  26. Tasha, I think it’s person-specific. I’ve had a lot of personal observation of people (and some personal experience as well) being told that they are stupid or incompetent, or just made to doubt themselves massively by all kinds of subtle, insidious intimations that they aren’t smart enough or capable enough to be up to dealing with something. It’s especially something done often to women — and because of that, I think women are often more willing to buy into it because they’ve been told it often enough, by enough different people.

    I’ve seen it done a lot, and it pisses me off — it doesn’t matter whether it’s gender-based or part of egotism or dominance games. I think it’s a subtle form of bullying, with the intent of making people doubt themselves.

  27. @JJ
    I’ve had it done to me a lot also. I frequently pick it up in texts and it also pisses me off. I’m seeing the “we think we are superior” part but it’s not giving off the bullying vibe to me I’m getting more of an insulting vibe. Maybe it’s because it’s in a comment rather than in the main post.

    For whatever reason we disagree on this point.

    On the slate like look and feel we agree.

  28. JJ:

    Kendall: @Mike Glyer: JJ’s not doing the same thing as RSR. For example, I don’t believe she’s appealed to her authority as an expert on people’s susceptibility to appeals to authority.

    JJ: Not to mention that the claim that “someone is intelligent enough to come up with a list of what they judge to be best” is the same as “someone is strong enough to withstand someone else’s efforts to persuade them to vote differently” is a blatantly false equivalency.

    JJ, although Kendall’s comment names me, I don’t recognize in your response something I was advocating. So perhaps I should begin by asking if this related to our exchanges at all?

    I will say two things I feel must not be confused are people’s susceptibility to slates (however strong or weak that tendency may be when unconnected to a political appeal) and many voters’ interest in making an efficient use of their reading time by looking first at things other people say they like.

    Every year there is discussion of whether SFWA’s Nebula Award nominees, which last year numbered six in each fiction category, exert influence on Hugo nominators. Yet the Nebula and Hugo shortlists often diverge greatly, such as in the pre-Puppy year of 2011 when only 9 of 19 Hugo fiction nominees were also Nebula nominees.

    If people do read and consider the Nebula nominees, they’re obviously looking at other things too. Something as prestigious as the Nebula shortlist is not dictating the Hugo result. Why would RSR exert anywhere near that influence? Sad/Rabid Puppies are enjoying their influence because they are tools of political and cultural appeals, not merely because they are lists. Their slates are a problem because they are used by a minority of voters to wield disproportionate power over the final Hugo ballot — a latent capability that has been present in the voting system all along, but very rarely abused.

  29. @Kurt Busiek: “message like “It’s like Ocean’s 11 meets Rendezvous with Rama!” or “If you like footnotes, you’ll love this!”

    LOL! I’m not sure which of those blurbs I like more. 😉 (The latter makes me think of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.)

    And yeah, I’m pretty sure author matters for some blurbs, hence big name author blurbs. I remember one years ago who blurbed a lot of stuff, but the blurbs were a bit generic-sounding sometimes. This supports what you’re saying, methinks.

    Now about that Ocean’s 11 meets Rendezvous with Rama book – where do I find that???

  30. Now about that Ocean’s 11 meets Rendezvous with Rama book – where do I find that???

    I don’t know, but when you do, talk it up here, okay? I’d like to read it, especially with all those footnotes.

  31. Heh, I really can’t predict opinions here. I’m somewhat closer to JJ re. RSR, but opposite re. Moen’s list, where I’m with Shao Ping, who disagrees (IIRC) on RSR, and . . . now the circle of life is complete, and I can rest.

    Sorry, I’m a bit punchy right now. At 1:30 AM, I’d planned to drop the ‘net and get in an hour(ish) of reading, but nooooo, work intervened and ate 1.5 hours! (shaking fist at work) I want my 1.5 hours back; there are books to read!

    /cranky-SF-fan

  32. Oh, that was for the same book, well, that moves it up my priority list even higher! 😉

    Hmm, is it by that same MilSF savant, T. Kingfisher? I’ll check their site. . . .

  33. So there’s this alien artifact drifting through the solar system and human and Jovian forces are entrenched within as they battle over its secrets — but D-anii Oeshan, Cerean prison parolee, and their team of then misfits, criminals, specialists and modernized fairy tale characters have to infiltrate, navigate their way through both armies,* and retrieve it’s secret cargo or all solar-vicinity life will end, hm?

    Sounds good to me. Ursula?

    *like you do.

  34. @Kendall
    Catching up. Just a point of clarification regarding my views on an another list like the puppy free voting guide that you responded do a bit back.

    I am not in favor of tracking the provenance of the nominations unless there is obvious blatant slating like last year.

    I think / hope SP IV will be a rather diffuse list of individual nominations as has been historically done. Even if they identify as a ‘puppy list’ I am not interested in it because I hope they will not exhibit slating behavior.

    I will just evaluate the work, and part of that evaluation will be if I really don’t like it – I reserve the right to stop and read something else.

    I felt the list last year was important but it also included things other than ‘puppy related’ works – the argument against best fan writing for Mixon as an example.

    To me that clouds the issue of any list’s clarity of purpose and makes me realize that even something like a new ‘puppy free list’ can be colored by subjective opinion. And honestly in my opinion that just feeds the proxy tribalism that is needed to keep resentment based movements alive.

    I plan to read the work and vote according to taste.

  35. @Kurt
    Brilliant !

    (As long as the alien artifact is not an alien seed bomb…they never work according to some marsupials)

  36. I think we can trust the redoubtable T. Kingfisher on that score. Though perhaps it is s seed bomb and won’t work, and that’s part of why it’s such a threat. But there’s on set of seeds within, and that’s what Oeshan’s Eleven have to secure…

  37. As I recall, James P. Hogan became a SF writer on a dare from his buddies. Why do I suspect that there will be a book out next year by the hot new MilSF writer S. Lapwing?

  38. @Shambles: Ah, gotcha. Yes, I was thinking in terms of slates or extremely slate-like, dodgy lists. Not just any rec list.* As far as SP4 goes, well, they made it clear early on that folks should vote for the ones that the most recs, which seems like a slate-pretending-it’s not. But we’ll see what they really do (and try to ignore Chaos Horizon).

    I’d forgotten Moen’s blurb pointing out how Mixon campaigned; that doesn’t bother me (I had major problems with how Mixon put things), but yes, it would’ve been better left off a self-proclaimed “puppy-free” guide.

    Thanks for the response!

    * ETA: I realize we’re not exactly on the same page. I am sympathetic to the concern about the issue getting clouded, though.

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